Take a Step (And I'm On My Way)
by Kiria Ithica
Summary: "My Pokemon don't like me," Kageyama finally grits out. "Satisfied?" There's a long, drawn out silence as Hinata's brain tries to comprehend this information. "Your Pokémon… don't like you?" he repeats helplessly. (Five times Hinata Shouyou loses a Pokémon battle to Kagayama Tobio, and one time he wins one)


_i. Hoenn's Where The Heart Is! (or, the first time.)_

The first time Hinata Shouyou loses a Pokémon battle to Kageyama Tobio isn't so much notable for the match itself, but for what happens about a year later.

It's the first officially recognized Pokémon battle he's ever taken part of. Hinata's fourteen years old and the battle club at his school has finally scraped up enough people to enter one of those tournaments where kids not old enough to be proper trainers can try out battling with a random Pokémon. A couple decades ago he'd probably have started his journey at eleven, but times have changed since then and the legal age for Pokémon trainers got bumped up to fifteen after some kid got eaten by his own Carnivine.

The tournament venue is outside. It's one of those nice breezy days when everyone in their right mind wants to be outside. The air tastes like autumn. Hinata breathes it in and tries to enjoy it. His stomach's tight with nerves and he's thrown up in the restroom twice already.

So he's sitting in one of the boxes they've marked out in the grass with chalk for trainers to stand in and playing with the Zigzagoon he'd gotten for this match when his opponent shows up. He's a tall boy, handsome, with thick black hair and a stony look on his face. There's a pokeball tightly clenched in one of his hands.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," he says.

Hinata looks up, blinks. "Do what?" he says.

The boy sighs, and gives Hinata the sort of withering look that people start bar brawls and world wars over. "Play with your Pokémon before the match. Battling is serious. What, did you come here to goof around and make memories or something?"

Hinata bristles. Fourteen-year-old boys are not typically known for their spectacular self-control, and even among his peers Hinata's short fuse is the stuff of legends. "I came here to win!" he snaps.

The boy scoffs. "You say that like you think it's going to be so easy," he says. "It's not. Even someone like you has to know that strategy is the most important thing in a Pokémon battle. Do you have a strategy that you can put your confidence in? You don't look like you do." His eyes shine with conviction. It's pretty obvious that he loves Pokémon battling, and a lot, but he's still an asshole and somehow this makes Hinata even angrier.

"I may not have a strategy," Hinata growls, and there's heat rushing to his face. "But don't underestimate me. My Pokémon and I are going to work together to beat you, y'hear me?"

"Not giving up is easier said than done—" the boy starts, but then an old guy in a referee shirt shows up and they both fall silent. They settle for glaring daggers at each other instead.

"Kageyama Tobio versus Hinata Shouyou," the referee says in his reedy voice. "Are you ready to begin?"

Hinata loses. Badly.

.

Later on he hears that Kageyama Tobio is something of a prodigy and on track to studying under a gym leader after graduating from middle school. Some people, Hinata thinks bitterly, just have _all_ the luck.

.

The year he turns fifteen, Hinata gets on his father's Pidgeot on the day that trainer registrations open and flies it all the way from their little house in Kanto to Hoenn, the home region of his personal idol: the 'Small Giant', who'd swept the League with his team of Hoenn's biggest Pokémon despite his diminutive stature.

Littleroot Town has the same familiar small-town vibes to it that Pallet Town does, but this is the _Hoenn region_ and Hinata's about to become a Pokémon trainer and so somehow it seems about a hundred times more exciting. It's six in the morning and far too earlier for anyone sane to be up and about. The air is cold and crisp with the freshness of a new place.

Hinata's sense of direction is appalling. Luckily, Littleroot Pokémon Lab is the biggest building in the entire town, and he ends up finding it no problem.

Unluckily, it only opens at nine.

"What the hell is this," he says disbelievingly, and then slumps down against the locked door, with no choice but to twiddle his thumbs and wait.

Ten minutes later a Swellow lands in front of the lab and—

It's like something out of a nightmare. "You," he says, disbelievingly. "Kageyama Tobio."

"You're…" says Kageyama. The Swellow cuffs him affectionately on the shoulder and flies away, but he ignores it. "I don't know your name."

Hinata snorts. "Course you don't," he says. "You probably wouldn't remember a guy who lost to you in the first round, huh?"

"No, I definitely remember you," Kageyama says, and then goes silent.

"What's with that?" Hinata says, incredulously. "You wanna fight or something?"

Kageyama stares at him. "Oh, Arceus," he says incredulously. "Are you an idiot or something?"

Hinata blinks, taken aback, and then grits his teeth. "Don't you dare look down on me! Okay, I lost last time. So what? I'll beat you next time!"

The other boy doesn't even reply, just surveys Hinata with that icy stare of his.

"What?" Hinata says, suddenly feeling strangely defensive. "Why are you even here? Weren't you going to go study under a gym leader or something?"

The other boy stiffens. "As far as studying under a gym leader goes," he says coldly. "I didn't get any offers. What about you? I thought you were from the Kanto region. Why are you in Hoenn?"

"I'm here 'cause the 'Small Giant' did his journey here too," Hinata says, pride bleeding into his strained voice.

"The 'Small Giant'? That trainer who ranked second in the Hoenn league last year?" says Kageyama. "So you're a fan of his, huh." He falls silent, looks away.

"Yeah," says Hinata, and sinks back into a squat. "Whatever. The lab doesn't even open until nine, so you might as well sit down."

Kageyama nods. "I see," he says.

They settle down to wait in silence.

.

They make it through the registration process without too many problems. Hinata and Kageyama get into exactly six arguments over the course of an hour, and Hinata accidentally knocks the Professor's toupee off, but other than that it's all smooth sailing.

The pokeball has a good weight in Hinata's hands. "This is so cool," he says to himself, and then repeats it again, louder. "This is so cool!"

Kageyama pockets his own pokeball. He's even smiling to himself, sort of. Anyway, he looks pleased, in a weird, Kageyama-ish way, and turns to head outside.

"Hey, hey, where are you going? Let's battle!" Hinata says.

"Battle you?" Kageyama says. He doesn't even stop walking. "No."

Hinata scowls. "Why not?"

The other boy pushes open the lab door. "Because," he says, leveling Hinata with a stare dripping with contempt. "There's no point. These Pokémon are brand new. They haven't been trained at all. It would basically be them tackling each other until one faints. And this town doesn't even have a Pokémon center."

He leaves.

"What an asshole," Hinata grumbles, good mood gone. He presses the white button on the pokeball, releases the Torchic inside onto the cold linoleum floor in a flash of red light. "You think so too, huh, little buddy?"

The Torchic cheeps curiously, and Hinata bends down, scoops it up. "Aren't you a cutie?" he says, and immediately feels embarrassed for cooing over it like some girl. Then the Torchic nuzzles its head against his shirt, and he gives up on maintaining any semblance of his dignity.

.

The nearest Pokémon Gym is in Rustboro City, and since challenging Gyms is what Pokémon trainers do, that becomes Hinata's first destination.

Camping out is harder than it sounds. Hinata spends the whole trip struggling with setting up his tent, running away from wild Pokémon, and contemplating how much of an asshole Kageyama is.

He eventually comes to the conclusion that he and Kageyama are destined rivals.

.

The next time he sees Kageyama is at Rustboro Gym, about a week after he first set off. He gets there just in time to see Gym Leader Sugawara's Onix slamming Kageyama's Mudkip against a rock. It doesn't get back up.

Kageyama returns his Pokémon wordlessly. A few seconds later, Sugawara does the same, and crosses the battlefield to put one hand on Kageyama's shoulder.

"Do you understand why you lost that match?" Sugawara says, finally. "All of your Pokémon were fairly strong, and your strategy was flawless. But you lost anyway, because your Pokémon didn't listen to your commands."

"I see," Kageyama says tersely, and glares angrily at the ground.

Sugawara clucks sympathetically. "You have some trouble conveying your feelings to your Pokémon, don't you?" he says. "It's a problem a lot of trainers have when they're just starting out. Don't feel too bad about it."

Hinata fidgets. "Um," he says. "Gym Leader Sugawara?"

The match begins without much further ado. Sugawara sends out the same Onix as before. Hinata tosses his pokeball up in the air and releases Torchic, who bursts out and lands on its feet in the sandy battlefield.

"Okay," he says. "Um. Charge it!"

And charge it Torchic does. In hindsight, it probably wasn't a great idea to ask a chick Pokémon barely tall enough to peck someone in the knee to charge a thirty-foot-long rock snake.

"Tackle," says Sugawara.

Hinata's eyes widen. Crap. "Dodge! Dodge! Dodge!" he yells.

Torchic dodges frantically; squeaking in alarm, and promptly gets whacked out of the battlefield by Onix's tail.

"Out of bounds," Sugawara says apologetically. "Do you have any other Pokémon?"

Hinata blushes. "Um. No."

.

"You want us to _what_?" Hinata says incredulously, staring at Sugawara in disbelief. Kageyama doesn't even say anything, just gapes. In any other situation, Hinata probably would have enjoyed the sight of Kageyama with his mouth hanging open like a Goldeen. As it so happens, it's all he can do to keep himself from falling over.

"I want you two to train together," Sugawara says serenely. "I think you would both benefit greatly from it."

"No," Kageyama says, finally managing to scrape his enough of his brains off the floor to put together a coherent sentence. "Absolutely not, Gym Leader Sugawara."

Sugawara smiles, and it's the single most threatening thing that Hinata's ever seen in his life. "Why not? Kageyama, you are an excellent strategist, and as for Hinata… while your strategy is somewhat lacking, there are very, very few trainers who can convince a Pokémon to charge directly at something thirty times their size. So I think you should try it. Come back in two weeks, all right? I'm sure you'll both be able to earn a badge from me if you do."

His eyes gleam menacingly.

A shiver runs down Hinata's spine. Kageyama looks like he's paralyzed.

"Okay," Hinata babbles. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll do it, okay?"

Kageyama makes a strangled noise of assent.

.

"I don't even understand this," Kageyama says, horrified. "So you're telling me you challenged a Pokémon gym that specializes in rock-types with one puny little fire-breathing chicken, even though fire-types are weak to rock-types and Gym Leader Sugawara's favorite Pokémon are all more than thirty feet in length, and you still don't get what you did wrong?"

"Uh…" Hinata says. "Yes?"

Kageyama buries his face in his hands. "Alright," he says, and his voice is kind of muffled but Hinata can still hear how strained it is. "Let me explain to you the basics of strategy. Rule number one: have more than one type of Pokémon."

.

"So what's the problem?" Hinata says, digging his toes into the grass.

Kageyama scowls, his face contorted into this weird expression of pain that's sort of scary but also sort of makes him look like he's really, badly constipated. "My…" he says, and then stops abruptly.

Hinata waits.

"My Pokémon don't like me," Kageyama finally grits out. "Satisfied?"

There's a long, drawn out silence as Hinata's brain tries to comprehend this information. "Your Pokémon… don't like you?" he repeats helplessly.

Kageyama growls. "I should have known you couldn't help me," he spits, and gets to his feet to walk off.

"Hey, hey, wait!" he says, and grabs Kageyama by the wrist. "Have you tried, um, talking to them? Like, what do you mean they don't like you?"

The other boy sits back down, a little reluctantly. "They don't do what I tell them to do," he says flatly.

"What, like, in a battle?" Hinata pictures Kageyama getting all frustrated barking orders at his Mudkip and it just not listening. The mental image makes him laugh, and he has to choke it back before Kageyama gets offended and walks off like the prissy little princess that Hinata knows he secretly is.

"Yeah," Kageyama says.

"Okay, okay," says Hinata. "Well, try letting your Mudkip out of its pokeball."

"Alright," Kageyama says dubiously. He fishes a pokeball out of his pocket and tosses it up in the air.

His Mudkip does a funny little wriggle in midair and then proceeds to nail the poor guy right in the eyes with a blast of water that leaves him sopping wet from head to toe. It makes a noise like a mix between a coughing fit and someone scraping their nails down a chalk board that Hinata knows with an iron clad certainty is the amphibian version of a cackle.

In the stunned silence that follows, the laugh that bubbles out of Hinata's chest is both completely unexpected and totally inappropriate.

Kageyama punches him in the nose.

.

"Oh, it's you two," Sugawara says with a beatific smile. He's just finished wiping the floor with yet another unfortunate challenger looking for their first badge. "Here to challenge me again?"

"That's right!" Hinata hollers. "And we're both going to win this time, too!"

Kageyama nods. There's a steely glint in his eyes. "We've both improved a lot. We'll definitely win this."

Sugawara laughs. "Is that so?" he says. "I knew you could do it. Well, shall we start then? Who wants to go first?"

.

When they leave the gym the sun is already setting on Rustboro. It's just starting to get dark out and the city is starting to unwind. Hinata's shoes click on the stone pavement.

"Man," he says, stretching. "I'm beat. Winning sure feels good."

They pass a streetlamp. The light catches on the badge clipped to Hinata's jacket.

"You know," Kageyama says, so softly that Hinata almost doesn't hear it. "I became a trainer because of this feeling."

"The feeling of what, victory?" Hinata stops walking and laughs, a little ruefully. He looks at the sky, breathes in the cold Hoenn air. "Jeez, I kind of get what you mean. Winning, it's like— bwaah! It feels great! But, well. I didn't really become a trainer because of this."

"You didn't?" Kageyama looks at him sharply. In the pale yellow light of the streetlamp his face looks softer, somehow, more… peaceful.

"Nah. I mean, I kind of lost more than I won anyway, y'know?" Hinata closes his eyes. The Kricketunes are chirping in the distance. A single Venomoth flits past, attracted to the bright, glowing streetlight. "But, well, I really love Pokémon. I want to spend my whole life with them! So that's why I decided to become a trainer."

"You could have become a Pokémon breeder," Kageyama says. "Or a Coordinator. Or even just a regular person with a fondness for Pokémon."

Hinata shrugs. "Yeah, well," he says, "I don't know. I think there's something about fighting side-by-side with your Pokémon that's special."

"Yeah," Kageyama says. He looks down at the badge in his hand with this weird, thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"You do?" Hinata snickers. "Hey, Kageyama, you're not such a bad guy after all. Tell you what, race you the rest of the way to the Pokémon Center!"

He takes off like a shot. Hinata is a fast runner when he has to be.

"Hey, wait—" Kageyama starts, but Hinata's already long gone. He shakes his head. There's a smile tugging at his lips.

He starts running, and promptly trips over a tipped-over trashcan in the near darkness.


End file.
